Satan's Daughter
by Artemissan
Summary: Two police officers confront a string of cult-like murders


SATAN'S DAUGHTER

By: John Brengman

The murder occured one night in a three-story house in the suburbs. According to neighbors, who were interviewed by Officer Joesph Karns, the Connell family were relatively well-off, were quite friendly, and were never the source of neighborhood trouble or the subject of gossip. "For them to be murdered," the gray-haired, tired-looking, Candace Smith stated, "is simply not something that one would expect to happen to people like the Connells."

Karns paused in his notes and ran a hand through his snady-blonde hair, rubbing at his scalp in a futile attempt to relieve his irritating case of dandruff, and being very thankful that it was 11:23 at night, and that no one could see nay flakes

"You know," Smith continued, "the Connells had no enemies, no suspicious contacts, nothing." She shook her head slowly. "I just don't understand it." The old woman turned and walked into her house, closing the door and locking it shut behind her. Karns, looking over his notes, decided that they did not build on the case. He tore off the page and dropped in the grass as he walked over to the Connell house.

Bill and Cathy Connell, ages 39 and 35 perspectively, both with brown hair and blue eyes had been up watching the television in the downstairs living room which was now a murder scene, decorated garishly with the blood of the deceased. An empty can of Budwiser lay on its side on the coffee table in front of the two victims, its remaining contents having long since made the journey from the can, onto the table, and from there onto the dark blue carpeted floor where it mingled with the blood of the murdered. The entire left half of the room, which faced the TV, was drenched in a sickening red. Officer Stephen Akerman, upon seeing the carnage, had called the coroner and had started to look for clues. All he found was more death.

On the second floor, there were two more bodies - children. Ackerman noted that the killed had to have done his work extremely quietly as whomever it was had not disturbed the kids from their sleep, which was now a permanent state of being in what seemed to be a sea of blood. However it was the last body that prompted Ackerman to call Lt. Brad Grompalous, the department's demonologist.

The last victim, identified as 15 year old Alex Connell had been found in an attic room. He had been slain in the same manner as the other children: a quick slash across the throat, as opposed to the hack-and-slash manner of their parents' deaths. The killer had lingered after dispensing of Alex long enough to draw an encircled pentagram in the boy's blood. Also written in blood under the pentagram was the message: "MY FATHER LIVES!"

"Well," Akerman later asked Grompalous, "what do you think of Alex? Is this another in the string of cult murders we've been having the past couple of weeks?"

"I don't know," Grompalous replied as he pulled on his prematurely graying beard, which seemed to be getting a lot grayer recently.

"It's probably the cults," Karns said as he entered the living room and purposely made his way into the kitchen so as not to look at the murder scene.

"Yeah", Akerman replied, "after all, in all of the cases, we've gotten phone calls from the crime scene informing us of the crime, and in each call you hear a woman's voice saying something like 'I've done it again.'" We end up tracing the call because the phone is left off the hook."

"Whoever it is is nuts," Karns quipped.

Flipping through a paperback copy of Anton La Vey's "The Satanic Bible" which had been found in Alex's room, Grompalous saw something that made him say, "I don't think this is a cult murder. It's something else."

"What makes you say that?" Karns asked.

"This," came the reply. Grompalous showed the other officers the book he was holding. "And here," he said, flipping open the front cover. Written on the inside was the word "Daneira-Satana" circled in red.

"Something tells me this is bigger." Grompalous thought.

"So," Chief Reynolds started, "you feel that there is something more to the demonology end of this case." Reynolds rose from his chair and started to pace. The lights from the main offices of the Metro Police Station glared through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the chief's office andfiantly emphasized the red in the chief's hair.

Grompalous leaned forward. The light enveloped his thinning head of hair and brilliantly displayed the bald spot just in front of the top of his head.

"Yes, I think there's definately something strange about the Connell case," Grompalous replied.

"Well give us some input," the chief said.

"First," Grompalous stated, "there is the pentagram. Then you have the literature and the mysterious phone call. Add to that some research I did which suggests that some cults attempt to call demons from Hell by drawing a pentagram on the floor and conducting a ritual where the demon or devil is called by name to appear inside the pentagram."

"The name in the book?" Reynolds asked.

"The name," Grompalous replied. "In an obscure reference, I found that Daneira is a demoness. The word "Satana" is used to indicate offpring, in this case, the offspring of Satan."

"I don't get it," Karns said quietly from the shadows. Reynolds sometimes liked to conduct meetings in the dark, but while Karns liked to play the mysterious spy, neither Grompalous nor Akerman saw any sense in it, and in this case, both wished the lights were on.

"I do," Reynolds replied, "but I don't want this angle getting out to the press. As far as the department is concerned, this is a cult murder wiht possible robbery thrown in. We will conduct investigations of both ends of the case. Let's hope something breaks."

"Yeah," Karns quipped, "and preferably on the robbery end of the case."

As Grompalous walked toward his blue Toyota Tercel after the meeting with Reynolds, he heard Karns.

"Hey Grump! Wait up!"

Grumpalous paused near his car and turned.

Karns walked up, his silver-gray eyes gleaming under a brown floppy hat. "You shook the chief up with all of that satanic mumbo-jumbo." He said.

"That's my job." Grompalous stated flatly. "I'm the staff demonologist."

"But you don't really believe this demon thing, do you?"

"I'm not sure," Grompalous replied with a wierd look on his face. "But I know one thing. A lot of impressionable people out there might believe in demons and devils and the like. If this string of murders was not caused by a demon then it was probably caused by one of those impressionable people, and they can be just as dangerous."

The next incident occured three nights later at a rectory adjacent to St. Christopher's Church, which overlooked a rather large park that served as sort of a buffer zone between the church and a row of high-class hotel high-rises.

When Karns and Grompalous entered the rectory, they found the priest slumped over a coffee table upon which laid a shredded Bible. The priest's face and clothes were stained with blood, and his body was warcked with sobs. Akerman was talking to the priest while Karns and Grompalous looked around the rectory for clues.

"Okay, Fr. James," Akerman said to the young priest as he took out a notepad and a pen. "Could you try to tell me what happened?"

The priest looked up, slowly put his glasses on, took a deep breath, and began:

He had been preparing the Sunday morning sermon when he noticed her. She had blonde hair, blood-shot blue eyes, red lips, a thin but well-formed body, and was wearing almost nothing at all.

Grabbing his notes, she ripped them into tiny pieces, saying, "You'll have to preach better than this if you want to defeat my father, who lives in Hell!"

"Who are you?" The priest asked.

"I'm your worst nightmare. I am Daneira, daughter of Satan!"

The priest was stunned by this statement, but he quickly composed himself and touched his crucifix.

"Oh," the demoness said. "If I wanted to kill you, that stupid cross wouldn't stop me, so you can forget trying to make me leave." Daneira glanced down at the table and saw the opened Bible. Sneering, she picked up the book and tossed it at the priest.

"Predict my future," she said.

"What?"

"I didn't stutter, fool!" She shouted. "Now, read me a verse... or die."

The frightened priest thumbed through the Bible, looking fora verse that might catch the demoness off guard. Then when he found one, he cleared his throat.

"Romans 16:20," he said. "For his part, the God who gives peace will crush Satan under... what the..."

The words had started to move, ot change, forming other words, mostly obsenities.

"They're only words," Daneira said smoothly. "Stupid words, written by stupid people, who were inspired by supernatural egomaniacs."

Akerman became so involved with the priest's story that he didn't notice the two blood-shot eyes that were surveying the scene from the wall near the entrance to the dining room, which was just to the right of the couch that Akerman and Fr. James occupied.

"Anyway," Fr. James continued, "before I knew it, my Bible had been destroyed and the demoness was straddling my body, leaning close to my face."

"'Do you know what my favorite verse is?' she asked."

"When I didn't reply, she said: 'Matthew 26:27-8. Take this and drink it. This is my blood...'"

"And she vomitted blood on me. Next thing I know, she's back standing on the other side of the table."

"'Do this in rememberence of me' she said, and then she was gone."

Karns and Grompalous had entered the room in time to hear the last couple of sentences of the priest's story. Grinning, Karns, looking at Grompalous said, "This lady is a psycho, isn't she?"

Grompalous glanced at Karns. "Most demons are, I would think." He said dryly.

The wall smiled...and time stopped for Grompalous. The priest was frozen in mid-word. Akerman was stopped while taking notes, and Karns was stifled in mid-yawn. Only Grompalous was able to move.

Daneira then stepped out of the wall as if it had been an open door. She had blonde, almost silvery hair, a sensuous smile, and a voluptuous body that was not clothed at all.

"Have you ever done it with a demoness," Daneira's silky voice asked as she slowly walked toward the stunned Grompalous, who couldn't believe the sensation that time had stopped, nor the reality of his present predicament. He was in such a state that he couldn't even mumble an answer to the seductress's question.

Then Grompalous was lying on his back. Daneira was on top of him, grinding her body into his, going theough all the motions of intercourse. The strange thing was, Grompalous was fully clothed. Yet, Daneira was clearly in the throes of sexual frenzy, and to Grompalous, it felt like the real thing. Then he fell unconscious.

When he woke, the priest, who had changed his clothes and had washed the blood off his face was leaning over him, along with Akerman and Karns.

"Are you all right, Grump?" Karns asked.

"I think so," Grompalous replied slowly. "My head feels like its been run over."

"Maybe it will feel better when you stand up," Fr. James said.

Together, the three men lifted Grompalous to his feet.

A wave of dizziness hit Grompalous, who was helped onto the couch, but that didn't help. Grompalous closed his eyes and wished the dizziness away.

Instead, he was flooded with memories. A door in a hotel. A horribly charred dead woman and man in a darkened, smoke-filled room. A dance in a beatifully lit ballroom. Then Grompalous remembered the sexual intercourse with Daneira and his head cleared almost immediately with sudden realization.

"Come on, we've got to go!" He said urgently.

"What?" Karns quipped.

"No time to explain," Grompalous replied, as he grabbed his coat and headed toward the door. "We've got to get to the Grand Fiesta Hotel, where they're holding that big dance for the veterans. That's where the next murder is going to take place."

Karns looked at Akerman quizzically. "Is going to...," he said. Then both officers and the priest took off after Grompalous.

"What room are we looking for?" Akerman asked as he watched the light of the elevator as it lit up, indicating the second floor.

"Third floor," Grompalous replied quietly as he pulled out his pistol and clicked off the safety, "Room 315."

"What happened to you?" Akerman asked.

"I got laid by the demoness."

Akerman slowly shook his head, "O-o-o kay."

Nothing else was said as the elevator reached its destination. The doors opened and the two policemen rushed out and down the hall. The hall was carpeted in red, and the walls were marble. Light was provided by small chandeliers that were spaced every few feet dwon the hall. The rooms sped by as the officers ran, 307, 309, 311, 313.

When the two officers reached Room 315, Grompalous stopped and listened at the door, while Akerman took up a ready position across the hall. Grompalous then nodded and got ready to kick the door down.

It exploded.

Wood flew across the hall, pelting Akerman with shards of flaming wood. Akerman dropped his gun to protect his face. Grompalous was lying next to him, having been knocked across the hall by the force of the explosion. Smoke poured out of the room and filled thehall in an acrid gray pall.

Daneira stepped out of the room, unaffected by the smoke or shredded door. She saw Akerman looking in disbelief at her. Growling, she swung viciously at his face. Her fingers scratched his cheek, but it felt as though thick claws had almost ripped his face off. The force of the blow threw him against the wall, where he slumped down. As Daneira shot down the hall toward the elevator, Akerman could see a fuel tank mounted on her back. Inone hand, she carried the nozzle of a flamethrower.

"Where the hell did she get that?" Akerman gasped.

"Where do demons always get their equipment?" Grompalous replied as he picked himslf off of the floor and helped Akerman to do the same.

Grompalous's walkie-talkie broke in then with: "Grump! This is Karns! The demon lady is down here!. There is quite a crowd gathering!"

Outside the hotel, a cul-de-sac had formed around Daneira. The only way out was down the street toward the park. Karns was frantically motioning people back as Grompalous and Akerman emerged from the hotel. After the crowd was under control, Karns turned to face Daneira.

"You'll never get away. Put the flamethrower down and surrender!"

Daneira scoffed at him, but she lowered the flamethrower to the ground. "You'll never win! I am immortal! I AM FOREVER!

For some reason, she started to run away, through the bottle of the cul-de-sac.

Hurriedly, Karns ran forward. He grabbed the flamethrower and kneeled, aiming at Daneira. He quickly pulled the trigger.

A huge blast of flame reached out and engulfed the demoness who twisted and fell to the asphalt with a scream of primal rage. The flames quickly cremated what had become the scourge of the night, now reduced to a howling mass of ash.

EPILOGUE

In the early morning in the park across from the hotel, a small poodle meandered through the tall grass, looking for a snack. He saw a little girl with blonde hair. He approached the girl out of curiousity...

The next day, a gray poodle was found hacked to death in the park.


End file.
